Hello! In our conference call of 27 January we discussed the list of things that SC 1.3.1 requires the user agent needs to highlight. We tentatively decided to:
1. add "active window", and
2. split "enabled elements" out of this list and make it lower priority, because unlike the others it is not already ubiquitous, and
3. redefine "enabled elements" to clarify that things like static text and images should not be highlighted, and
4. remove "presence of alternative content" because it is already required by 1.1.3 Identify Presence of Alternative Content, and
5. add links that have not been recently visited.
I looked at the idea of replacing "enabled elements" with a new term such as "actionable item", but decided it would be simpler to simply enumerate the classes in the success criterion.
Proposed Wording
The following are revised versions of Guideline 3, revised versions of Success Criteria 3.1.1 and 3.1.2, and a new Success Criterion 3.1.3 with Intent, Examples, and Resources. Changes are shown in italics, a list of changes, and a list of questions are further down. Feel free to suggest changes.
*1.3 Provide highlighting for selection, active keyboard focus/, and interactive elements/*
*1.3.1 (former 3.5.1) Highlighted Items:* The user can have the following highlighted /when recognized,/ so that each class is uniquely distinguished (Level A):
* (a) the selection
* (b) /the active keyboard /focus
/ * (c) the active window
* (d) links that have been visited recently
* (e) links that have not been visited recently
/
*1.3.2 (former 3.5.2) Highlighting Options:* When highlighting classes specified by 1.3.1 Highlighted Items /and 1.3.3 Highlighted Input Controls/, the user can specify highlighting options that include at least (Level A):
* (a) foreground colors,
* (b) background colors, and
* (c) border (configurable color, style, and thickness)
*1.3.3 Highlighted Input Controls:* The user can have the following highlighted when they are recognized. (Level AA):
* (a) enabled controls that take input (e.g. push buttons, radio buttons, check boxes, and text input fields, but not groupings or static text and images) regardless of whether they are read-write or read-only, and
* (b) elements with scripted input handlers (e.g. images or text ranges that have onClick or onKeyPress events) regardless of whether the current state allows them to operate.
*Intent for Success Criterion 1.3.3:*
When a user looks at a page they often want to quickly find the control they need to accomplish their task, yet in some pages the controls may be "buried" amid a large amount of other content, or may be styled to make it very hard to distinguish from other content. This can be particularly difficult for people with visual impairments, who may not be able to easily distinguish visual differences that may be subtle or obvious to users with average vision. It can also be a problem for people with some cognitive impairments, who may have difficulty distinguishing between items with similar or non-standard appearance. The ability to have these items visually distinguished can greatly help reduce the amount of time or number of commands they need to use examining a page. This success criterion works in conjunction with 1.3.1 Highlighted Items, which ensures highlighting of several other classes of information, and with 1.3.2 Highlighting Options, which ensures that the user can
customize the highlighting to meet their visual or cognitive needs.
*Examples for Success Criterion 1.3.3:*
* Binh gets easily frustrated when he cannot locate the buttons and links on a page, usually because they don't have the standard appearance he's used to. By turning on the option to have all links appear in bright purple, and all push buttons and the like drawn with a bright purple border, he can easily scan the page and find the items he's looking for.
*Related Resources for Success Criterion 1.3.3:*
* 1.1.3 Identify Presence of Alternative Content (Level A) requires items with alternative content to be highlighted.
* 1.3.1 Highlighted Items (Level A) requires highlighting of additional classes, including the selection, the active keyboard focus, and visited and unvisited links.
* 1.3.2 Highlighting Options (Level A) requires the user be able to customize the appearances of these highlights.
Changes
The changes to 1.3 include:
1. made it broader by changing "selection, content focus, enabled elements, visited links" to "selection, active keyboard focus, and interactive elements"
The changes to 1.3.1 Highlighted Items include:
1. added "when recognized" to the SC, so we would not need to repeat it in each of the bullet items
2. changed "content focus" to "the active keyboard focus" because the former term is no longer used (except it also needs to be changed in 2.2.3)
3. added "the active window"
4. removed "recognized enabled elements", which were split off into 1.3.3 Highlighted Input Controls
5. deleted "presence of alternative content" because that's redundant to 1.1.3 Identify Alternative Content
6. changed "recently visited links" to "links that have been recently visited" and "links that have not been recently visited"
The changes to 1.3.2 Highlighting Options include:
1. added "and 1.3.3 Highlighted Input Controls" so it covers both the existing 1.3.1 and the new 1.3.3
1.3.3 Highlighted Input Controls is all new, although it is an altered version of what was 1.3.1 bullet (c).
Open questions
1. Is there a more concise way to say "links that have not been visited recently"?
2. Do we want to incorporate any material from the new 1.3.3 Intent and Related Resources sections into those for 1.3.1?
Thanks,
Greg